Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Fishing with electricity

I asked Nate Herman send the electroshock boat over to a customers pond on Wednesday. I had seined the customers 1 ac forage pond 2 weeks prior and moved a bunch of GSH to the main pond, then he drained the pond down to kill it because of the buffalo and bullheads that we found in it. Well, that night they had at least 8" of rain and the pond filled up. The next day/night they had another 4"+ rain and the forage pond and main pond became one.

The forage pond overflows to a dry ditch that makes it's way to a river that is 3 miles away as the crow flies. Rough fish swim up the ditches during high water events. This was one of those events. The main pond rose a good 5 feet and dropped back down to full pool, all in the span of about 4-5 days.

So the customer wanted to know what made it to the main pond and Nate had an opening in his schedule.

The client has been trying to fish out any and all crappie in the pond. We shocked up a full 5 gallon bucket full of 8"-10" Black Crappie which were all removed. He's never been able to get underwater weeds established in the pond in 15 years for a few reasons, now we know that there are a few Triploid Grass Carp in there. One almost jumped in the boat that was probably 40#, and we were unable to net it. We were able to remove one that was about 30#. and also netted 2 buffalo that were in the 30#-35# range and one common carp that was 3#-5#.

The pond had the potential of getting the reset button pushed, depending on the e-shock survey. The survey was such a success that the button will not be pushed. We will stock golden shiners, Redear Sunfish (Saw some Yellow Grubs on the LMB and 0 RES but one BRES so there had to be a couple RES in there at some point.) and more HSB. The 4"-6" and 6"-8" HSB that were stocked are now 8"-10" and 12"-14".

35# Buffalo


Buffalo, TGC and Common Carp. Bucket is there for scale.


4# LMB


4# and 5# LMB


5# LMB belly

Nice report!

The nice thing about fishing with electricity is that you can net fish out that you wouldn't otherwise catch on hook and line.

Exactly.

And if you are not bringing up any fish, then there's no diagnostic value, assuming you do indeed have fish in your pond.

Very true!

It's amazing how this pond has changed the fish dynamics in the past 3 years. Complete 180°

WOW !!